Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

You might want to read the second article. It would be a person employed BY they church but certified by the Alabama Peace Officer Training Commission.

So it seems the legislation give the church the ability to hire and pay for a certified LEO. Why is that bad?

Why is it necessary for there to be legislation to hire and pay for a certified LEO?

I can't tell from the various articles, but I'm assuming it's because the current law didn't allow for it.

This is, no matter how you spin it, a police department as part of a church.

This is bad... why?

You don't call private security "a police department". Police departments are specific things.

I know of several religious colleges having their own campus police. They're actually accredited police departments... meaning, that I'm sure they get state/federal grants and fundings.
EDIT: Actually, i just looked a two of them here in MO, and it looks like they're actually a separate entity than the church. Essentially a private organization, paid by the campus, whom are defacto-police departments. So, I don't think this is an apples-to-apples comarison.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
How is it not an endorsement of that specific church?

Or are they allowing every type of religious institution form their own police force?

Seems to be just the one church because it has a "school" (sorry, not sorry... religious institutions not associated with the Jesuits have a dubious history in my book)

I would hope that this gets struck down because 1. Bentley resigned/is resigning, so he can't/won't sign it. 2. it looks unconstitutional as feth to me.

Letting schools and districts have police departments, unless they are part of a church, seems more unconstitutional than the reverse.

Schools frequently have their own police departments rather than hiring off-duty guys.

A PD as part of a church campus is still enforcing the same secular laws and government by the same secular training and requirements as any other PD in any other jurisdiction. And their jurisdiction will be limited to campus grounds, nothing more. They ain't going around town arresting gays and writing citations to people with mixed fabrics.

The outrage seems very misplaced, and this is coming from a guy that thinks religion and politics don't mix.

 d-usa wrote:
Letting schools and districts have police departments, unless they are part of a church, seems more unconstitutional than the reverse.

Really? How do you figure that?

Schools frequently have their own police departments rather than hiring off-duty guys.

A PD as part of a church campus is still enforcing the same secular laws and government by the same secular training and requirements as any other PD in any other jurisdiction. And their jurisdiction will be limited to campus grounds, nothing more. They ain't going around town arresting gays and writing citations to people with mixed fabrics.

The outrage seems very misplaced, and this is coming from a guy that thinks religion and politics don't mix.

Agreed 100%. This isn't a beginning to some roving-fundamentals arresting folks over religions...

 d-usa wrote:
Letting schools and districts have police departments, unless they are part of a church, seems more unconstitutional than the reverse.

Most university campuses can be more rightly viewed as a small office of local city/county LEOs. None of my campus' security carry guns, and most of their response flow charts amount to "Call the sheriff" even though there's a deputy present pretty consistently from 9-5 during the week.

Oggthrok wrote:
A friend traveling through Alabama just made me aware of what is, apparently, quite big news there today:

http://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/alabama-senate-votes-to-allow-church-to-form-police-dept

In a 24-4 vote, the Senate has approved the request, with the House to debate the matter yesterday.

Ignoring the implications, good or bad, the strangest thing to me is that I'd heard nothing about this. Even now, if you Google for it, all of the news links are things like Newshub or Russia Today, not CNN or Fox or the New York Times. I found that Fox link, but you'll notice its Fox Baltimore...

Anyway, church run police, how about that?

Whats the issue?

A little background: multiple institutions have police forces. These are designed to protect their specific grounds. They are not putting in church law or any such nonsense any more than campus police on a private school. Further, in many states, churches take on substantial liability if they form security committees to protect the grounds and congregation during service. This is an issue given the history of church attacks. Its just a variant of larger churches hiring off duty PoPo.

Our church explored these options as well. We went with one provider: AWDSS (Angry Wiener Dog Security Services) because they not only were they cheap and brutally effective, they were also darn cute.

It will be interesting to see who freaks out, literally about nothing.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Letting schools and districts have police departments, unless they are part of a church, seems more unconstitutional than the reverse.

Most university campuses can be more rightly viewed as a small office of local city/county LEOs. None of my campus' security carry guns, and most of their response flow charts amount to "Call the sheriff" even though there's a deputy present pretty consistently from 9-5 during the week.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. Every major university I have been to has had a real police force. They carry guns and everything. And this is in California.

My Junior College had I think 4 full time officers, who patrolled the 3 campuses, which encompassed a larger area than most of the cities in the area. Cal Poly has 6 full time officers, and they were in the process of hiring I think 3 more.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 whembly wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
so is the church going to be paying for all these officers, or is this really just trying to get the tax payers to pay for it.

Church paying for it.

cool, I have no problem with that.

You'd think god would be enough to protect them though.

God protects those who protect themselves.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
At first it seems stupid, then the less inflammatory article makes it actually sound a bit reasonable. I don't really understand why they need police departments over there to have proper security though. Is it because security would essentially be relying on citizen's arrests if they needed to detain someone whilst the police officer would certainly hold more weight?

It doesn't matter about it being "less inflammatory", they want to get around the fact that they are a private organization wanting official support.

There are public schools that have just as hard of a time getting/keeping school resource officers, and public schools are just as likely to have the kinds of problems that you would need a dedicated police officer for.

They want to be a private institution, parents want their kids to go to a private school, etc--then they can shell out the cash for a private security force.

That's what this is. The church pays for the school that's part of the church and the church will pay for the security officer position at the private school run by the church. It's cheaper than having to hire 3rd party security.
There are numerous office buildings, commercial campuses, shopping centers, etc. that have their own in house security department that polices the grounds. Most colleges, public or private have their own security force.
The security officer at the church's private school is enforcing the same laws that govern the rest of Alabama and the US, there's nothing to get alarmed about here. Private institutions, secular or religious having their own private security officers keeping the peace on their private property by enforcing the laws that govern everyone is perfectly fine.

Whembly's Article wrote:Some critics of the bill have questioned why the church and school need a police department, but it's essentially a way of hiring a police officer full-time, as opposed to relying on off-duty police officers to assist the church, Johnston said.

It's exactly what I have said it is. It's not a "security officer", it's not anything you attempted to paint it as.

It's them wanting an actual police officer, from the on-duty officer pool, to be made available to them.

It's not Joe Dirt in an old Crown Vic repainted to say "Church Cops" or anything like that. It's a police officer from their local district, in an officially marked vehicle.

No it's not. It's the church wanting to hire a police officer of their own to be their own full time cop under the auspices of the church's own police department. The church can't hire an officer already employed by the local PD to work solely for the church. There aren't enough local cops to allow that to be scheduled, that's the primary cause for the church wanting to form its own police department in the first place. Not enough local cops to be hired by the church in their off hours to police the church's school campus so state legislature passed a law to allow the church to create it's own accredited police department to police it's school campus.

Here in our home state of NC it is perfectly legal for private schools and businesses to have their own private police forces that enforce local and state laws with the same power of municipal police departments. Letting churches have police departments that operate under those same rules is no big deal. If a church wants to create it's own accredited police department to allow it to hire officers to enforce local and state laws on the grounds of the church and schools run by the church that's not constitutional, not a problem and not something to be upset about. If the local mall can have a legit police department that can arrest people etc. then I don't see why a church can't.

Campus & Company Police Officer Certification

Campus and Company police agencies are a vital part of the criminal justice system. Campus and Company police help enforce laws on private and public school property, at public hospitals, at shopping centers, apartment complexes and office buildings, and even on golf courses and recreational lakes. These agencies and their officers may by law provide the same police services within their territorial jurisdiction as do municipal law enforcement officers in North Carolina.

Under Chapter 74E of the North Carolina General Statutes, the Attorney General is given the authority to certify an agency as a company police agency and to commission an individual as a company police officer. For campus police officers, the applicable general statute is found in Chapter 74G.

A public or private educational institution or hospital, a state institution, or a corporation engaged in providing on-site police security personnel services may apply to be certified as a campus or company police agency. A campus or company police agency may also apply to commission an individual designated by that agency to act as a campus or company police officer.

http://www.ncdoj.gov/getdoc/cda6467e-77ce-4f5e-bb46-502e15c78ada/Campus-and-Company-Police-Officer-Certification.aspx

Churches are a pretty easy soft target, even more so with substantial number of children on the ground.

My old church was pretty huge, had a preschool, and a very large Sunday school attendance. We didn't have our own PD, but we had a significant number of uniformed and undercover officers assigned to the building for each service. It was also a newer building (less than 10 years old) and it was very much designed with an active shooter scenario in mind. In addition to the Officers there the entire children's section was designed to be sealed off with doors and emergency shutters with a single push of the panic button.

The church frequently received threats, so the precautions never felt out of scope. I don't blame any large group that is a potential target for wanting to protect itself.

The thread title is a bit misleading. I came in here all outraged and ready to rant, but it's nothing to get worked up about. Most colleges/universities have private security/police to patrol campus, even up here in my filthy socialist paradise.

But stringing Alabama, church and police force together like that sure makes for a scary headline.

 d-usa wrote:
Churches are a pretty easy soft target, even more so with substantial number of children on the ground.

My old church was pretty huge, had a preschool, and a very large Sunday school attendance. We didn't have our own PD, but we had a significant number of uniformed and undercover officers assigned to the building for each service. It was also a newer building (less than 10 years old) and it was very much designed with an active shooter scenario in mind. In addition to the Officers there the entire children's section was designed to be sealed off with doors and emergency shutters with a single push of the panic button.

The church frequently received threats, so the precautions never felt out of scope. I don't blame any large group that is a potential target for wanting to protect itself.

That's a good point.

I also think it's better to have churches or any private schools or large event spaces relying on their own self funded security as much as possible rather than always having to draw on municipal law enforcement resources. Allowing churches/schools/office parks/shopping centers to have their own police forces patrolling their property frees up municipal PD resources without adding any burden to taxpayers.

If its just an institution forming its own force to protect its own property and nothing else. I suppose thats fine as long as they dont get any government dollars

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
You'd think God would be enough to protect them though.

Or maybe they are trying to prevent things like that one white supremacist who shot up a black church a couple years ago.

We had an ex show up during a service and two of us ran the gal out a side door and to a room we use built for tornadoes until the police came. That was fun.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
If its just an institution forming its own force to protect its own property and nothing else. I suppose thats fine as long as they dont get any government dollars

I think that with private police the govt should actually be making money off of them. Typically the private dept would have to spend money paying the state govt to have access to state police databases (to be able to run license plates, check for warrants etc.) pay for classes for its officers and pay fees to maintain it's accreditation and be subject to oversight by the state Attorney General. Private PD shouldn't be received state or federal grants/funding but their eligibility to do so would be dependent on state and federal laws.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Letting schools and districts have police departments, unless they are part of a church, seems more unconstitutional than the reverse.

Most university campuses can be more rightly viewed as a small office of local city/county LEOs. None of my campus' security carry guns, and most of their response flow charts amount to "Call the sheriff" even though there's a deputy present pretty consistently from 9-5 during the week.

Actually, they may be full police forces depending on what the state permits. Texas school frequently have mini PoPo forces. That way the athletes don't run into real PoPo and bad things happen.

I read the article and, being an atheist I came here to complain. Then I read the article and I don't see what the big deal is. I went to a private Catholic university that had its own campus police. They had guns, radios, cars and the authority to arrest just like the cops in the cities around campus. They only enforced regular criminal law and weren't some Pope Strike Force.

I have a bigger issue with churches that hire off-duty cops for traffic or security. They may pay the officers for their time, but who pays for the patrol cars and gas. What about the stress on the officers working additional hours when they should be resting? Isn't the job stressful enough without having to try and get OT all the time?

In many cases the pay for cops is pretty crappy and they rely on OT like that to make ends meet. But that's a separate issue altogether.

My brother is a cop in Houston. He has several regular 'off duty' gigs to augment his pay.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Letting schools and districts have police departments, unless they are part of a church, seems more unconstitutional than the reverse.

Most university campuses can be more rightly viewed as a small office of local city/county LEOs. None of my campus' security carry guns, and most of their response flow charts amount to "Call the sheriff" even though there's a deputy present pretty consistently from 9-5 during the week.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. Every major university I have been to has had a real police force. They carry guns and everything. And this is in California.

My Junior College had I think 4 full time officers, who patrolled the 3 campuses, which encompassed a larger area than most of the cities in the area. Cal Poly has 6 full time officers, and they were in the process of hiring I think 3 more.

I should clarify: I go to a private "religious" school, not a public one.

The public community college I transferred from had actual sheriff deputies on site, in a designated office (even if their uniform was a bit of a "lite" version consisting of Khakis and a black shirt with a badge embroidered appropriately).


EDIT:

Talked with some friends who live in the area and, I'm not sure if it's in the OP articles or not, but the issue that most of them have isn't the police presence but rather who that police agency reports to. The local papers there in Montgomery, AL are reporting that according to petitions and the bill, the police officer(s) would report directly to the church, not to a city chief of police, county sheriff or anyone else.

So yeah, they *could* uphold state and local law, but as recent history would show us, they could just as easily cover up misconduct by church officials, especially when their job could be on the line.